A Real Alternative? – How Alternative News Media Coverage Compares to the Mainstream in New Zealand Jay Acton 2019 School of Communication Studies Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies A thesis submitted to the Auckland University of Technology in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of a Master of Communication Studies 1 ABSTRACT The public receives most of its information about important national and international events through the news media. Since the advent of the internet, mainstream news media has experienced a decline in its audience as the number and popularity of alternative media outlets has dramatically increased. What the mainstream and alternative news media include in their stories and how they frame these stories has implications for citizens and society. This study compares how news is covered by online text-based alternative and mainstream news in New Zealand using quantitative content analysis. Article length, Context Factors, Number, Type, and Balance of Sources, as well as Dominant Media Frames were measured in coverage of 25 news events across four mainstream and four alternative New Zealand news outlets. The research showed that, compared to the alternative news media, the mainstream news was more consistent, and slightly longer in average article length; used approximately 25% more context factors; relied heavily on government sources versus alternative news reliance on expert sources, and used approximately 30% more sources overall; were 30% more ‘balanced’ in their use of sources, and approximately seven times less likely to run a story using an unopposed source. Furthermore, the research showed that the ‘conflict’ frame dominated mainstream media news stories – wherein two or more sides to a story are presented - while the dominant frame in alternative news media stories was that of ‘attribution of responsibility’. While the results of some of the measures – including article length, context factors, and number of sources – proved difficult to interpret, the mainstream media’s more balanced use 2 of sources, reliance on official government sources, and use of the conflict media frames were explainable in that it reflects the appearance of professional journalism’s values of balance and objectivity. The results showing alternative news media’s less balanced use of sources and their predominant attribution of responsibility framing was supported by much of the literature around alternative journalism describing it, in part, as oppositional, justice-seeking, and ‘activist’ journalism. However, while these results highlight some clear differences between the two types of media, it is worth considering the following; that historically, the mainstream news media, in a sense, emerged from what can be considered a proto-alternative oppositional news media; that the two have thereafter functioned in a complex relation to one another; and that with both alternative and increasingly mainstream news media moving to the internet, they may be in a relatively convergent period. 3 ATTESTATION OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person (except where explicitly defined in the acknowledgements), nor material which to a substantial extent has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institution of higher learning. Signed:_____ ____________ ______________ Dated:____________10/04/2019________________________________ 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Sarah Baker for her insight, guidance, and extreme patience throughout the lengthy process. I would also like to thank Associate Professor Vijay Devadas for his consistent and continued support, as well as Jessie Hsu for her patience and understanding. Finally, thank you to family – especially Catherine and Robert Acton – and friends, for your invaluable support and encouragement. 5 Table of Contents ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................... 2 ATTESTATION OF AUTHORSHIP ............................................................................................................. 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................................... 5 LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 10 1.1 Why Compare the Alternative and the Mainstream News? ....................................................... 10 1.2 The Media and the Social Construction of Reality ...................................................................... 11 1.3 Censorship and Propaganda ....................................................................................................... 13 1.4 The Propaganda Model in New Zealand ..................................................................................... 15 1.5 Comparing the Mainstream and Alternative Media ................................................................... 16 1.6 Thesis Structure .......................................................................................................................... 16 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................................................... 17 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 17 2.2 Defining the Alternative to the Mainstream News Media ......................................................... 17 2.3 The Dance of the Mainstream and Alternative Media ............................................................... 21 2.3.1 Bourgeois Journalism and the Public Sphere ....................................................................... 21 2.3.2 Challenges and Critiques of Bourgeois Media ...................................................................... 24 2.3.3 New Forms in Alternative Media ......................................................................................... 26 2.4 Political Economy Effects on Alternative News Media ............................................................... 28 2.4.1 Political Economy and Alternative News Media .................................................................. 29 2.4.2 Patronage ............................................................................................................................. 30 2.4.3 Commercial Support ............................................................................................................. 30 2.4.4 Personal Journalism ............................................................................................................. 31 2.4.5 Collective and Movement Support ....................................................................................... 33 2.5 News Selection ............................................................................................................................ 34 2.5.1 Structural Pluralism .............................................................................................................. 34 2.5.2 Gatekeeping ......................................................................................................................... 35 6 2.5.3 The Three Dogs: Watchdog, Guard Dog, and Lap Dog Theories .......................................... 36 2.5.4 News Values ......................................................................................................................... 37 2.6 The Propaganda Model ............................................................................................................... 40 2.6.1.Media Ownership ................................................................................................................. 41 2.6.2 Advertisers ........................................................................................................................... 45 2.6.3. Sources ................................................................................................................................ 46 2.6.4. Flak ...................................................................................................................................... 48 2.6.5. Anti-communism/Anti-terrorism/Dominant Ideology ........................................................ 50 2.6.6 Worthy and Unworthy Victims ............................................................................................. 52 2.6.7 Criticism of the Propaganda Model ......................................................................................... 53 2.6.8 The 6th Filter: An Instrumental Component .......................................................................... 57 2.6.9 The 6th Filter at the Paper of Record .................................................................................... 59 2.6.10The Black Box Problem ........................................................................................................ 60 2.6.11 Five Additional Filters for the Digital Age .......................................................................... 61 2.7 Framing ......................................................................................................................................